The Cure
by Fangirl1a
Summary: A sudden Cure has sprung up for all mutants to try. This Cure is proven to remove your X-Gene! Mutants such as Rogue and Spyke consider it. This could be their chance. But is this marvel really what it seems? Or is a more sinister plot at hand?
1. Chapter 1

**Sorry I've been inactive for a little while. I've been working on 3 fanfictions at one time but they'll be here soon. So for now, enjoy my new story.**

"It's terrorizing downtown!" Cyclops called to his team as he and Storm landed the X-Jet.

"Where did it come from?" Rogue asked but got nothing but a stiff shrug in response.

The jet landed on top of a building carefully, barely making a sound. Ink black smoke was gathering in a sinister way and rising all around.

"So, Scott?" Kitty called as they opened the jet door. "What exactly is the "it" we're talking about?"

Suddenly a swift cold breeze followed by a dark wail came from a few blocks away, people ran screaming from its direction.

Scott waved his team over. "You're about to find out."

"What is that?" Jean took a step back at the sight of the creature.

It was a mass body of smoke, dark and as cold as the middle of the ocean on a starless night. The only sign of it being alive were its eyes, blank and burning red with madness. It took up almost an entire street. It was spitting out a black goo that was coating over anything it touched. It was as tall as the skyscrapers around it and horribly vicious.

"We've got ourselves a big one," Wolverine told the kids.

"How do we destroy it if it isn't solid?" Shadowcat yelled over the screams.

"It doesn't get bigger unless fed Kitty. We might have to collect it bit by bit. I don't think we could contain it all at once," Cyclops informed her.

"So what are we waiting for?" Nightcrawler jumped up and ran towards to monster.

Jean and Storm short behind and followed by the rest. Each X-Man held a capsule created by Forge, made to contain anything no matter how strong.

Nightcrawler was first and teleported himself to the ledge of a building. Inside a woman and her child screamed at the sight of him. But they instantly calmed down when he opened a white box and the darkness began to clear.

Rogue was below him, she grabbed her box from her belt and opened it towards the beast, it's smoky figure began to suck inside. She got a good chunk of it.

The creature was beginning to see it was being weakened and it didn't take it long to realize what was doing it. It howled in a raspy way like a strong wind. With a growl the creature opened its mouth, red as his eyes, and screamed. The wind blew back a number of X-Men as well as cars and street lamps.

"Hold on!" Wolverine yelled digging his claws into the ground, but he didn't find balance and ended up just scraping the pavement.

Kitty was able to avoid the wind by sinking under the ground. Rising back up she found her self face to face with the monster, now a few feet smaller. She smiled a little at the fact that it was becoming easier than she thought.

"Take this you big stink bomb," she grabbed her box and took in another good chunk of the creature.

It howled again. As the other X-Men were running back already, it noticed it wouldn't last much longer. It felt another suction from its back, Nightcrawler reappeared and took some more from it. The beast hissed and tried to spit on him but he was too fast and teleported out of the way. The goo hitting nothing but a street light.

"Kurt!" Rogue shouted to him as the dark beast took another spit, barely missing him this time.

"Hurry X-Men," Scott yelled "It's getting angrier!"

Kitty ran to get another bit but wasn't fast enough. This time the creature did something new. Out of its mouth it blew black smoke, it forcefully hit her straight on.

"Kitty!" Several people called for her.

When the smoke disappeared Shadowcat was out cold. Nightcrawler teleported in and out, picking her up and putting her back in the jet a block away. Oddly enough, the beast was even smaller after its attack, towering at only 10 feet or so. As if the strike at Kitty took out a third of its power.

"Come on everyone," Cyclops shouted "Lets finish this."

He ran towards the creature from behind and opened the box. But the darkness was ready and waiting. It turned around to face him with steering scarlet eyes. It hissed and spat the same smoke at him.

"Scott!" Jean flew towards him to find him knocked out the same As Shadowcat had been. She carefully levitated him to the jet.

The dark beast was only about the size of Blob now, but angrier with each decrease. The beast began a scream again, sending them all back half a block. It began to grow even darker and the air turned a freezing temperature. It didn't stop screaming and continued the gust of cold wind. As the smoke thrashed in anger it started spiting out everywhere, it was becoming uncontrollable, even to itself.

Storm tried to stop the wind but nothing worked. Jean quickly noticed someone was missing, the X-Men looked around for Rogue.

"There she is!" Wolverine yelled over the roaring wind and shrieking smoke.

The group looking where his eyes were. Rogue was gripping on for her life to a street light that was slowly coming out of it's place. She was surprisingly close to the creature and looked like she wanted to get closer.

"What is she doing?" Jean asked worried.

The X-Men looked on, some trying to call her over. But she didn't even look at them. Rogue was able to pull against the wind from the lamppost to a pay phone box, just as the post flew away. The phone booth wasn't doing much better. Rogue was about an arms length from the shadow monster now. By the time any of them realized what she was doing, they were too late.

"Rogue! Stop!" Storm tried to call to her just as the child's gloveless hand plunged into the beast.

The two began to flicker as anyone does when touching Rogue. The beast and the girl both screamed horribly. Rogue grabbed her own wrist, trying to pull away. The beast had stopped the wind however, and the X-Men were coming to her rescue. All she needed was. Kurt to push her away in order for everything to stop.

The street went silent. The smoke lingered on the spot, Rogue lay unconscious on the ground. The creature seemed to have regained it's sanity and Jean began to suck more of it into her box. As she did, it jerked awake. It looked down at itself, smaller than most of them now.

"Is it okay?" Nightcrawler asked, for it seemed a little vague, like a lost child.

Suddenly the creature howled again and spat the last of its energy on Rogue. As the smoke surrounded and cleared her already unconscious body, the beast evaporated.

The X-Men arrived home in a heap. Cyclops, Kitty and Rogue were still out cold. Wolverine offered to carry Cyclops but Jean knew he'd be embarrassed about that when he woke up so he levitated him and Wolverine carried Rogue. Kitty, being to lightest, could be carried by Nightcrawler.

"How'd it go?" Bobby Drake asked the group as they arrived on the lawn.

"Did you contain the monster?" Hank questioned them.

"Was my invention awesome?" Forge grinned.

The Professor arrived at the top of the stairs with greetings and a smile.

Scott began to stir and Jean lay him down on the grass as the X-Men stared down at him. Scott's eyes shot open, but instead of his normal beams, the lens of his visor shattered outwards and the beams from his eyes were black. Black and cold as the middle of the ocean on a starless night.


	2. Chapter 2

"Are you here for your 4 o' clock appointment young man?"

"Yes, mister."

"How old are you Boy?"

"I'm ten, mister."

"An early bloomer I see."

"I know."

"No worries. Please, this way son. Go right in and press the button."

"..."

"Ah!"

"Boy?"

"..."

"Oh, what a shame. Another failure."

...

"Rogue? What are you doing on the computer? You've been on for like, two days straight," Kitty Pryde told her roommate noticing the laptop that'd been there when she'd left that morning.

Rogue took a bite of the apple she was munching on but didn't look Kitty's way. Annoyed at the ignorance, Kitty threw her pillow at Rogue and hit her in the face.

"It's mine now," Rogue told her.

Kitty rolled her eyes. "This doesn't have anything to do with the whole Cure thing does it?"

Rogue didn't respond and acted as if the question was never asked.

"Rouge? I'm serious," Kitty sat on the edge of her roommates bed.

Rogue looked up from her computer "I don't want to talk about it."

Young Kitty Pryde looked down. "You never do," she said. But more to herself.

The two sat there for little bit, not speaking to each other. Rogue didn't look up from her research again. Kitty stared at her expectantly to no avail.

Giving up Kitty began to leave. "The Professor said we need to meet him in the common room at 8. You have one more hour."

...

"Students," began Professor Xavier "It has come to my attention that the project known as The Cure has largely increased it's consumers. However, people do not see the danger in this experiment."

Everyone's attention was struck at the sound of The Cure, the thing going through their mind for days now.

"Why is it dangerous Professor?" Scott asked.

Charles Xavier let out a deep breath. "With this experiment some of your most prominent genes are removed and re-arranged, most could not survive such a process, in fact only a little more than half will make it out alive. Worse yet, less than half will make it out without any permanent effects."

"Like what?" Kitty asked worried.

Hank stepped forward. "With this "cure" permanent physical damage could be located upon the user. Even then you may not survive long after the process is complete."

The X-Men shared worried looks. How many casualties had this machine taken already? Kitty looked over to Rogue who didn't return the glance and kept her eyes down at her feet.

"So what is this meeting about Professor?" Scott raised an eyebrow behind red shades.

Charles looked down. "Normally I wouldn't ask you to do this. But I've decided to send you out on a mission to destroy this machine. It'll be under top security, they expect mutants of all types to try and take them down so we must be extra careful. If it is done right it won't be hard, please try to refrain from using your powers too much. We must leave when it opens first thing tomorrow. Not all mutants know of this risk, in fact very few do. Right now many young mutants are on their way to the base, unaware their lives are at stake."

...

"Dear friends," read Fred holding back tears as he read the note left of Todd Tolensky's bed "I have decided that a life for a mutant is no life for me. I've decided to take it upon myself to head off and get cured. The base is in Boston and I've pulled out my life savings to get there."

Lance took a glance at the shattered piggy bank that lay on the floor. Not a single penny left.

Fred continued to read "I'm sorry I didn't say goodbye to you all but Ill be back soon. Until then I wish you all the best in ruling the town. Your friend, Toad."

Fred began to blubber like a baby after reading the letter.

"What's the big deal Blob?" Pietro asked. "He said he'd be back. Some of us have been gone way longer than he might be."

"You really think so?" Fred asked.

The three nodded reassuringly. Todd may be the youngest but he was street smart and seemed to know what he was doing. The Brotherhood decided to shrug it off for now. their friend would be home soon. Then the phone rang downstairs. All of them walked down with Wanda who answered.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Wanda? It's Cyclops," Scott said. He was driving the X-Jet smoothly through the sky. They'd just taken off.

Wanda raised her eyebrow. "What do you guys want?"

"We're just checking in on something. Have you all heard of the cure?"

Wanda nodded but then realized he couldn't see her. "Yes, we have. It's funny actually we-"

"I just wanted to make sure none of you planned to go for it," Scott cut her off, having no time for idle chit chat.

"Why?" Wand a asked cautiously. She put Cyclops on speaker phone so the rest of the house could hear.

"The Cure is having some serious side-effects Wanda. Using it has a alarmingly high risk of coming out injured or possibly maimed. Survival isn't even too likely," he told them.

Wanda quickly shut off the speaker phone and picked it up again. "What?"

...

"Why are they here again?" Shadowcat asked Cyclops while staring coldly at Avalanche, who was oddly interested in something out the window.

"Because one of them is in trouble and they wanted to come along," responded Cyclops very matter-of-fact.

"So what's the plan exactly?" Wanda questioned.

Wolverine looked towards her. "Team A gathers the mutants inside and warns them of the dangers. Team B takes care of the workers and security guards. Team C will blow the machine and take out Dr. Allen as well."

"And what team are we on?" Pietro asked him.

"The Brotherhood are on Team Z. They stay in the jet and don't touch anything," growled Logan.

A collective amount of groans came from the Brotherhood.

The X-Jet soon landed a little ways away from the base. It stayed in stealth mode as the Brotherhood sat locked inside it.

"Okay X-men,' Wolverine called to the group "It's go time."

...

Nightcrawler, Beast, Iceman and Magma were on duty to warn the mutants so they ran towards the designated waiting room. The halls looked like a rusty old hospital, the waiting room itself was polished and furnished beautifully. There were many mutants in there, including Toad.

"Do you have an appointment?" Nightcrawler looked at the stern man at the counter and in a swift movement jumped on him. He quickly teleported away with him as his teammates evacuated the group.

"Come on, come on! You have to leave right now!" Bobby shouted waving his arm to the exit.

Magma grabbed a young girl and helped carry her out, Bobby was not fare behind pulling along another boy his age. The two left and the large group of mutants followed them to the parking lot. Only one mutant remained.

"What's going on, yo?" Toad asked Nightcrawler as he reappeared.

"You've got to get out of here Toad! It's not safe," Nightcrawler told him.

"Whaddya mean Fuzzy?" Toad raised an eyebrow from his yellow eyes.

"This machine. The cure is dangerous, it could kill you," said Nightcrawler. "Why do you even want to get cured anyway?"

Toad looked at him with a blank expression, it quickly turned into a sneer with traces of disgust in his eyes. "I don't know about you Fuzzy, but I'm tired of looking like this! I thought I could be normal. I thought maybe they'd stop calling me ugly or disgusting. Maybe Wanda would give me a chance. But they were right, they all were, they always were, I'm a freak. And there goes my last chance of changing that."

Nightcrawler didn't know what to say. He'd never seen this side of Toad ever before. He looked down at his posture, crooked and hunched. His green tinted skin, sickly and thin. Nightcrawler looked to his eyes, they were down cast, they were large, round and lit yellow like a light bulb. They glistened with what he pretended weren't the boy's tears.

"We have to go Toad," he gabbed his hand and led him out through the front door and back to the cruel world outside.

...

"Team B to Team C is everything alright there?" Wolverine called into his watch, a walker-talkie was embedded inside it.

"Yeah, we're fine. We're walking through the hall but its like, really quiet right now," whispered Kitty Pryde back to him.

"Where's Hank, Half-Pint?" Wolverine asked cautiously.

There was a brief pause from the other end. "Beast's fine. He just had to take care of an extra guard a while back."

Wolverine felt slightly concerned, it was just Kitty and Rogue back there. Could they fare alone?

"What's that? Another door?" Logan heard from the other end.

"It's locked Kitty," Rogue's voice was picked up.

There was another pause, Wolverine listened intently. The scene around himself was also quiet. Team B had separated into sections and he'd already taken care if his part of the mission.

"Ok Rogue, we're going through," said Kitty.

Logan listened and heard a faint noise, the sound that the Shadowcat normally makes while faxing trough. Then he heard a loud thud. The line was filled with loud rustling.

"Hello? Logan?" Rogue spoke through the transmitter "I think Kitty's out. There was a cabinet almost right in front of the door. I guess she couldn't get out of the way in time."

"What do you see around you kid?" Logan was slowly making his way down to where the machine was said to sit.

Rogue looked at her surroundings. It looked like an evil science lair. "I don't see very much," she told him.

Peeking out from behind the cabinet gave a whole other insight. The room opened up to be much larger. It was dark and round with long black corners where she couldn't see to. In the middle was a large glass tube that reminded her slightly of the Rebirthing Machine. This one had more tubes that filled with colorful gas. Inside stood a large body, from the shadow she could see through the fog he looked slightly misshapen. But he was about to hit the button.

"Wait!" Rogue called, running out without thinking.

Through the watch Logan put his hand to his face, she should've waited for backup.

"Who are you then young lady?" A lean man with a thin mustache stood there. His eyes were wide but his pupils felt small, he stared down at her with a thin toothy grin. He dressed in a white lab coat and wore giant goggles on his head. This must be Dr. Allen.

In a quick and impulsive movement, Rogue leaped behind him and delivered a chop to the back of the neck. It allowed her enough time to break towards the machine. The person inside froze in shock but didn't fear the sudden attack.

Dr. Allen stood up and rubbed his neck. "Oh young lady. That wasn't a good choice." Dr. Allen ran towards the alarm and hit it down, the noise blared through the building, red lights flickered through the halls. But Dr. Allen hadn't noticed his defenses had fallen. While he waited on his staff, Rogue latched the bomb onto the machine.

Wolverine grunted as the alarm went off. He quickly navigated his way to the room that held "The Cure" deep inside.

"Logan!" Wolverine heard from his watch. "Someone's still inside! I can't get him out!"

Laughter came from behind Rogue. "Of course you can't darling," Dr. Allen sneered "I think you'll find that the door won't open until the process is complete."

Rogue picked up a loose crow bar behind the machine and threw with great force and aim towards the Doctor's stomach. Dr. Allen ducked down but the bar only took the blow to his head, knocking him out cold.

"It's okay," she said to the person inside, hitting on the glass. "I'll get you out of there."

"No," mumbled the person, from the voice Rogue could tell it was a man. He had leaned back so he was on the other end of the machine, the fog almost blocked him completely. She backed away and went for the control panel, searching for a way to open it.

"Sir you don't understand this machine could kill you," she told him.

A dark silence lingered around the large room. The quietness stung sharp as knives as she waited for a response.

"I understand Rogue," he responded weakly.

Rogue was stunned for a moment. He knew her name. "How do you-"

The man stepped forward, closer to her. Through the glass Rogue spotted dark plates of bone armor.

"Spyke? Is that you?"

Evan Daniels peered at her through the glass. He had evolved even more than ever, his bones almost completely covered him. She remembered him so young and energetic. Not like right now. Spyke had left them a while back, when him armor began to escalate. She remembered when he began having trouble controlling it, just as he was getting used to them. Rogue found the emergency stop button that could open the door.

"I'm gonna get you out," she said.

"Rogue I can't leave. I don't want to. I'm already here," said Spyke "I thought you of all people would be the one to understand."

"It's hurting people, Spyke," she reasoned with him "You don't know what it'll do!"

"Rogue! Don't you get it? I could be normal! I could go back to school! Don't you want this too? You could touch people! Imagine that!" Spyke said, his voice in a form of panicked begging.

Rogue stared at the button, it was right under her fingertips, she could stop this. "I know," she sighed.

"Then let me do this. I need to do this. I want to go home. No more sewers! Maybe you can still go out and show your face but I can't! Look at me. Look at me!" Spyke was yelling now.

Rogue was at a loss for words. She kept choking on her voice, he was right. "Spyke, I-"

"No, not Spyke," he interrupted "I'm Evan. Just plain old Evan." With that Spyke pushed down hard on his button. The machine whirred.

"Evan, wait!" Rogue called to him. But she couldn't find the courage to push the button and stop him.

The machine rumbled, colored smoke quickly filled the entire chamber. She could hear him grunting inside. The tubes were pumping and working something into the chamber. Rogue crossed her fingers from behind the control panel.

"Kid? You there?" Wolverine's gruff voice echoed from her watch out into the room.

"Logan? It's Evan. He's inside," she said not believing it herself.

"Evan? Porcupine?" Wolverine asked.

Suddenly the door clicked open. Spyke stepped out weakly from the chamber.

"I'm cured! No more armor!" Spyke smiled. His body was bare besides his jeans that were a little too big now. He looked in amazement at his hands, his skin, it was all normal again.

Rogue stood still. It had worked for him, could she do it too? To touch again, that would be perfect.

"Y'know it might not have the same effects on you, kid," Wolverine somehow read her mind. His voice broke her train of thought.

"But I...Y-yeah, I know," Rogue said, her voice dropped.

She ran forward and set the bomb. Then, grabbing Evan's wrist she yanked him out the door.

"Lets get out of here, porcupine!" Rogue called even though his spikes were no more.

The X-Men evacuated the building as fast as they could. They hopped into the plane an took off as quickly as they could. Cheers, chatter and the welcoming of Spyke were unheard by Rogue, who stared out the window.

"Great job X-Men," Cyclops said to the group.

A rumble went off followed by a blow. Rogue watched as her only living hope burned into flames.

...

"Hello Ororo, what brings you by?"

"Hello sister, I have someone I think you'd like to see with me."

"..."

"Evan?"

"Hi mom."

"I thought you'd be gone forever."

"Me too."

"You're armor. I heard it grew."

"It did."

"It's gone?"

"It's not coming back anytime soon."

"And you've come home."

"Yeah, yeah I have."

The End

**So thank you to everyone who stuck around and read this :)**

**See you around. 3**


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